


the first lily opens its red mouth

by seinmit



Series: Writing the Rainbow [7]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky in Wakanda, Character Study, Flowers, Gen, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23018404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seinmit/pseuds/seinmit
Summary: Bucky might have been a city boy once, but that was a long time ago.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Shuri
Series: Writing the Rainbow [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567993
Comments: 5
Kudos: 39
Collections: Writing Rainbow Red





	the first lily opens its red mouth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GirlOfSaltAndStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlOfSaltAndStars/gifts).



> Title from [More Than Enough](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42466/more-than-enough) by Marge Piercy

Bucky came to Wakanda in winter and was thawed in spring. Seemed appropriate, he thought. 

"And now you'll blossom," Shuri said, her voice dry. 

"Everything else seems to be," he said. It was the rainy season, and the world was shockingly green. He was fascinated by it. 

"Are you sure I can't get you into a house that's indoors?" Shuri said. She had a city slicker's doubt about the little village he'd lead her to that morning. As the princess of the country, she was comfortable in every inch of it—but she lived in a spacious apartment in the palace, a floor away from her lab. 

This village was not that. There were goats and children. The people who lived were mixed—some had agricultural expertise, others worked in the city. The vacant hut on the edge of the village was perhaps the smallest dwelling, but it was just him. 

The woman who lived in the larger house about 100m away was a cardiologist, she said. 

"I grew up here," she had said to Bucky and the princess both, after introducing herself. "No better place to get some peace and quiet." 

Early on, when he first shivered his way to awareness and started to think about what it meant to have a brain that was all his own, he had gotten in the habit of long walks. He made his way through every alleyway he could find in Birnin Zana, getting the type of glorious lost that didn't matter because he didn't have anywhere to be. 

It was a beautiful city, pristinely clean, and filled with a variety of beautiful architecture. Wakandans had an eye for that sort of thing and Bucky got the sense that they wouldn't do anything dull when they could do it dazzling. 

He had spent a good ten minutes examining a pillar on the side of the street, one of the first days there. It had a detailed mosaic in turquoise, purple, and orange. He stared at it, torn between a normal human curiosity and the vivid memory of saffron fields in Iran—the blue sky, the violet petals, the bright orange of the interior stamen that would be worth so much when picked by careful hands. He remembered walking through them with three men's packs on his back along with his own, laden down more than the donkey. He clinked as he walked and he had a mission, but his eye, even then, couldn't help but see the flowers. 

"—Barnes? Bucky. Are you alright?"

"Hmm?" he said, feeling dazed, blinking up. Shuri was there. She looked concerned, and behind her, an older woman looked away with a deliberate artfulness that meant Bucky knew he was being watched. It had certainly been more than ten minutes.

"How long have I been—"

"Long enough," Shuri said, cheerfully. "But it's no big deal. Just, it's probably safer for you to nap with your eyes open at the palace." 

She straightened her spine and held out her arm—not as if to an invalid, but if she herself needed escorting. 

Bucky took it, and they walked back. Shuri nodded gratitude at the woman, who smiled at them both. Bucky could see relief in it. 

"What was that thing?" he asked, and Shuri didn't even try to contain her snort of laughter. 

"A trash can," she said. He laughed too, surprised, a little hoarse. 

"Okay," he said. "Well. You have stunning trash cans." 

She didn't bother to reply. They just walked back, and Bucky kept his mind on the flowers in order to avoid the questions in his mind. It was easier to think of the swaying violet fields than to wonder what he had to do with the fall of the Shah of Iran. It was easier to think of that, then to wonder what the Wakandans would do with someone who couldn't be trusted to take a walk. And the flowers didn't care if he was like this, if he might always be.

That day Shuri scanned his brain to make sure nothing was actually wrong and declared that he was healing normally. 

She clapped him on the shoulder and told him to get out of her lab. 

"Should I…" he started, trailing off when he didn't know how to formulate his question. 

"If your brain wants to zone you out, that's no real concern. You're very obvious, Sergeant Barnes. We can come retrieve you no problem."

He hesitated, staring at her. He was unused to that level of freedom. There were big, scary questions about the permanence of these lapses, if the memories would drag him under the way the empty blankness of the Soldier did. But that felt distant and muffled by the prospect of just going, getting lost, and only getting surveilled when he was actually needing help. 

"Shoo!" she said, flapping her hand at him. "There's a garden off the East Wing, if you'd like." 

Bucky went there for lack of better ideas. He walked along paths that seemed to be carved out of the riot of flowers by God himself and not the clever gardeners that surely did it. It fit in, everything seemed to—each new patch of color was in its place. 

It smelled so intensely that it was almost too much, the fragrant reek of flowers advertising themselves curling into his nose, into his body. They might seem pointless, he supposed, decorative frivolity, but they had meaning to themselves. They had goals for their life, if it meant something to think that about a plant. 

He touched the lush pink flowers of something he didn't recognize. They felt like velvet. 

Bucky kept taking those walks. Most days, he was fine, able to investigate the new place with his mind on the present, but often enough his memories dragged him back. It always felt like falling asleep, even if the clarity of what he saw was much more than a dream. He would see something and study it and then sink down, dragged by the gravity. 

The Wakandans really didn't seem bothered by a crazy old white man having silent episodes on the streets of their capital city. Still, soon enough, Bucky started walking in the other direction from the palace. It was odd to wake up to friendly passers-by trying not to stare in commingled concern and curiosity. He left through the gardens, this time, and walked in the countryside. 

It was lovely in a different sort of way than the gleaming organization of the city. There were still many signs of human cultivation, but mostly the Wakandans let the natural world be. He tried to learn the place he was in. 

One day, on that set of walks, he found himself confronted with a tree covered in a riot of red flowers. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before, the tree, with a thick trunk and branches crawling out in a tidy half-circle. There were only the most tender beginnings of leaves, but each end of the branch bore bright scarlet clusters of compact cylindrical flowers. They were a startling, red-hot color, and they reminded him of nothing but themselves. 

There was a chattering gaggle of little birds in the branches. They seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as he was, even if they did it louder.

He heard someone approach, with the slap of sandals on dirt. It was only then he was fully aware he hadn't actually zoned out. 

He glanced behind him. An old man was making a steady way to Bucky's side, stopping only when he was next to him. They both looked up into the canopy. 

"Umsintsi," he said. "The Lucky Bean Tree." 

"It doesn't look like beans," Bucky said. The man shrugged. 

"Come back after the flowers go away, then you'll see them." 

With that (and likely the confirmation that Bucky was alright), the man left. He past by the trunk of the tree, patting it fondly, and kept walking. It was then Bucky noticed the little village, just ahead. 

Bucky wanted to see what happened after the extravagance of the blooms faded. He wanted to see what made their beans lucky.


End file.
